Ohio-bred singer-songwriter Jessica Lea Mayfield has made it hard to know just who she is musically. Over the course of four albums she’s reinvented her sound, stumbling between country, soul, hard rock, and boilerplate indie rock. Her diminutive voice—a small, fragile warble—has been the consistent element, but it exhibits a chameleonic effect that seems defined […]
Tag: Vol. 47 No. 5
Issue of Nov. 9 – 15, 2017
Posted inMusic
Susanne Sundfør turns from EDM-driven pop to intimate, folk-steeped songwriting
Norwegian singer Susanne Sundfør found international success with her 2015 album Ten Love Songs (Sonnet Sounds), a slick recording that situated her opulent folk-derived melodies within fizzy arrangements propelled by EDM-style production. Her soaring vocals shine in such jacked-up surroundings, but the album’s treacly synthesizers and four-on-the-floor grooves tended to flatten the refined beauty of […]
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Florida rapper Ghostemane fuses lo-fi rap with the metal of his youth
Ghostemane is a white rapper from Florida who was reared on punk, metalcore, and other strains of aggressive music that had some modicum of accessibility and a fragment of crossover success. In a June interview with taste-making rap podcast No Jumper, he said, “The fans of my stuff now would have been fans of the […]
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French-Cuban duo Ibeyi yearns for a just, contemplative world on its new groove-filled album
French-Cuban twins Lisa-Kainde and Naomi Diaz, also known as polystylistic R&B duo Ibeyi, masterfully transform firsthand experiences and thoughts into something universal on their ravishing second album, Ash (XL). The former wrote the song “I Wanna Be Like You” with the latter in mind. Though the lyrics recall her early memories of dreaming she possessed […]
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Kamasi Washington scales down for his new release without letting go of his ambition
Los Angeles saxophonist and bandleader Kamasi Washington has achieved remarkable heights since dropping his triple CD debut, The Epic (Brainfeeder), in 2015. The lavish, often overstuffed album worked the early 70s spiritual jazz of Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders into ambitious, meticulously crafted new shapes, giving it a crossover appeal it hadn’t enjoyed in decades. […]
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Mndsgn designs lounge love funk for hip-hop Heads
“It’s so hard to read anything you’re expressing / it’s so vague / we need just a little clarity,” Mndsgn croons woozily on his 2016 album Body Wash (Stones Throw Records). The line is funny because it’s so baldly inapplicable; everything about hip-hop producer Mndsgn’s music, from his consonant-clotted name (pronounced “mind design”) to his […]